In certain appliances wherein the door opens from a substantially vertical position to a substantially horizontal position by pivoting downward about a horizontal axis, i.e. the door being hinged at the bottom edge. The weight of the door and those elements on it may tend to tilt the appliance about its front supporting elements. For example, in the portable dishwashers which are normally provided with a front opening access door pivotable for a substantially horizontal axis so that the door moves from a vertical or upright position to a substantially horizontal lowered position. The cantilever extension of the door provides a lever to which any downward motion will tend to pivot the whole cabinet about its front support which will normally be a pair of casters thereby lift the rear of the cabinet. Obviously such an unstable structure may well result an accidental tilting of the appliance which in turn may result in damages to the contents thereof or possible injury to the person applying the force to the door to cause tilting.
This problem has been recognized by the art and various solutions have been proposed.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,150,904, issued Sept. 29, 1964 to Kendt et al discloses an anti-tipping device wherein bars are mounted adjacent each side edge of the appliance cabinet and are connected to the door in a manner such an opening of the door causes forward projection of the bars beyond the front of the cabinet to provide a foot to aid in supporting the cabinet and prevent tilting.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,150,905, issued Sept. 29, 1964 to Payton et al discloses an alternative form of anti-tip device wherein a pair of front panels position one on each side of the machine and normally located in face-to-face relationship with the front face of the machine are pivoted about substantially vertical axis to move the panels to a position substantially perpendicular to the front faces of the machine so that the free ends of the panels extend beyond the front face of the machine and provide an extended foot member. With this device it will be apparent there is very significant clearance between the free end of a panel (i.e. the foot member) and the floor so that an initial tipping must take place before the device becomes operative.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,322,480, issued May 30, 1967 to Barnstead et al, teaches the use of a relatively complicated linkage that lowers and extends a foot along a track as the door is moved to an open position.
Canadian Pat. No. 1,031,406, issued May 16, 1978 to Gurubatham (equivalent to U.S. Pat. No. 3,393,950) teaches a concept of a bottom front panel that is extendable from the front of the cabinet to a position underlying the open door when the door is open, so that face of the door bears against abuttments at the top of the panel to force abuttments of the bottom of the panel into contact with the floor and thereby stabilizes the cabinet.
Canadian Pat. No. 836,420, issued Mar. 10, 1970 to Dutcher et al (equivalent to U.S. Pat. No. 3,529,881) provides a device somewhat similar to the device shown in the above-mentioned Canadian Pat. No. 1,031,406. In this case the bottom panel is pivotally connected to the door by a pivot spaced from the hinged line of the door and is connected at its bottom end to the cabinet via a link so that movement of the door to open position causes the bottom panel to pivot into a position substantially perpendicular to the door along its pivot connection to the door and thereby provide a support spaced from the front of the cabinet and underlying the door when the door is in its open position.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,727 issued June 12, 1973 to Race et al discloses yet another extendable foot member for stabilizing a cabinet such as a dishwasher. In this particular arrangement interconnected links and levers coupled with a latching mechanism position the foot in operative position when the door is open and retract the foot to a retractive position when the door is closed. In this particular device, the leg member does not extend significantly beyond the front face of the cabinet and thus the effectiveness of the support is limited.
Canadian Pat. No. 899,437, issued May 2, 1972 to Kaldenberg provides support by a means of a pleated front panel, one end of which is connected to the cabinet at a position to spaced from the bottom of the door and the other end of which is connected to door adjacent to the top thereof with a pair of hinge points provided and so that a substantially vertical member extends downwardly from the door adjacent to the outer end thereof and forms a leg support when the door is open. Obviously this structure requires a particular type of paneling to form the decorative face of the door and thus severely limits the applicability.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,770 issued Apr. 10, 1984 to Brezosky teaches a device very similar to that taught in the above-referred to U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,727.
It would be apparent to all of the above structures are relatively expensive to incorporate into the applicance, particularly in the dishwasher.